The Lawrence school board on Monday will consider approving a 10-cent increase to lunch and breakfast prices in addition to some student fee increases for the 2024-25 year.
Currently, lunch rates for elementary, middle and high school students who are not in the free and reduced-price lunch program are $2.90, $3.10 and $3.15, according to the agenda item. If the proposal is approved, those would increase by 10 cents to $3 for elementary, $3.20 for middle and $3.25 for high schools.
Full-price breakfasts for elementary, middle and high school students are currently set at $1.90, $2 and $2.05, respectively. If approved, the new prices would be $2, $2.10 and $2.15.
Reduced-price lunches would remain 40 cents, and reduced-price breakfasts would remain at 30 cents.
The board last year also approved 10-cent increases to each student meal price with the exception of reduced-price meals. Adult lunch prices last year increased to $5 from $4.65 and breakfast prices increased to $3 from $2.55; those rates would remain the same for 2024-25 under the proposal.
The agenda item says the food service department has seen an increase in food, supply and labor costs. And the department purchases a portion of its produce from local farmers and ranchers, which are at a higher cost than purchasing from wholesalers.
Student fees
The board will also consider approving new student fees for this fall, some enrollment and device fees being proposed to increase, according to the agenda item.
If approved, the monthly fee for pre-K students to enroll at New York Montessori School would increase $20, to $560 from $540.
Fees for intentional damage to technology equipment may increase. The replacement fee for iPads would increase to $50 from $40; for MacBooks, to $90 from $75; for Microsoft Surface products, to $50 from $40; and for hotspots, to $15 from $10.
Instrument repair fees would increase to 15% of the instrument’s value from 10%.
No other changes to standard enrollment fees are proposed from the 2023-24 fees.
The meal prices and student fees are on the board’s consent agenda, a list of items that are routinely approved in one motion unless a board member or the superintendent requests to pull an item for further discussion. A slew of other items are also included.
In other business
• Consultant contract, software renewal and new board leadership: The board on Monday will also consider approving a $100,000 contract with a consulting firm to produce a district enrollment and boundary analysis as well as the renewal of its contract for Gaggle, a surveillance software.
Read more in this article.
The school board meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Monday, July 8 at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.
Meetings are open to the public, livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/@USD497, and broadcast on Midco channel 26. Full meeting agendas are available on BoardDocs, via go.boarddocs.com.
To give public comment during the board meeting, sign up before the meeting starts either in person or by emailing PublicComment@usd497.org. Commenters may request to participate by Webex video/phone conferencing.
Updates:
• Lawrence school board renews contract for AI student monitoring software, increases student meal prices, July 8, 2024
• Lawrence school district will likely pay $65K for boundary analysis; school board postpones approval, July 8, 2024
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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